


Vocation - Obverse

by lferion



Category: Highlander: The Series, Holby City, Original Work
Genre: Challenge Response, Crossover, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-13
Updated: 2007-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An entry in Methos' journal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vocation - Obverse

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Dan Clifford is Methos" challenge on holbycitylounge. Credit for inspiration and previous exploration of some of the themes of this piece goes to Seashell14 in her response to the challenge -- found [here](http://seashell14.livejournal.com/1243.html). This may turn into the prologue of a longer piece, but no promises. Many thanks to KPRoche and Temve.
> 
> The poems are mine, the second originally published in part in "Walking to Babylon" by Kate Orman (Virgin), the first written for this ficlet.

January 6, 2007 -- Holby, Logres

\-----
    
    
    Death dreams - not  
      scarlet, crimson, vermilion, rust  
    But bitter blue - not  
      dying: dead   
        Bleached bloodless   
      White ash, clay and dust  
    The mystery of riven skin, unknit
    
    Death dreams - not  
      ruddy, flushed, flensed, flayed  
    But bruis-ed blue - not  
      bleeding: bled  
        Breathless, blanched  
      Chalk and sand and salt  
    The calling of sharp-severed flesh
    
    Death dreams - not.  
      Flesh and fire, blood and air  
    Lightning-blue - not  
      failing: fled  
       Upward, outward  
      Bone and breath, word and will  
    The invocation of re-formation: Life.   
    

  
\-----

"Why surgery?" Someone asked me once, someone who _knew_ \- who I was, who - and what - I'd been. A good question. _Why_ the consultant, the doctor, physician, barber-surgeon, chirurgeon, laece-man?

"Because," I could not tell them, "it is the obverse of Death-on-a-horse. Coin of the same stamp, the same metal, shaped by the same force, but with a shift in the set of the die, the other face upward." How could I explain - and have them understand - that the purpose of a blade is to cut: cleave death from life and life from death?

Or convey the ecstasy of immediacy, immersion in the small matter of the mystery of flesh that does _not_ knit in a blue-flash moment, under the ozone-lash of light, but invisibly, slowly, cell by cell by cell. Still a miracle, a wonder. How could words, even my words, in any human language, mere written, spoken symbols, transmit what _I_ know, the memory in my flesh, the images behind my eyes, the silences in my ears, so many, many layers interpenetrating? What possible framework could hold the concepts, the context, of who I am and what I might do for those from such a different place and frame of reference? (Actually, an interesting idea for another time. But back to my present purpose.)

Surgery. Flesh parting beneath an edge. Why?

Life before me, under my hands, subject to my skill, my will, my blade and purpose and presence. The continuance of that life, even betterance, rather than the end. The increase in knowledge, the potential for more, rather than less. And all with the same tools, the same experience, different result. I defy death with each incision. And Death hones each scalpel.

Daniel Clifford and Death have an understanding. As Dan, I can make that coin show the face of life. Death serves me, not Time, not War. The hoof-beat thunder in my ears is the rush of life in a repaired, un-riven heart.

I answered something prosy, citing - truthfully, but hardly completely - interest, curiosity, challenge, use and the irony of the unexpected. The forms were satisfied.

Someday, perhaps, I will know how to give a better answer.

\-----
    
    
    I will write my will in warrior's blood  
    Wounding the world with my words
    
    What do they know  
      That have not seen?  
    What do they know  
      That have not felt?
    
    The flutter of life  
      Beating against the blade  
    And the red steel edge  
      Of silence
    
    I will write my will in warrior's blood  
    Scarring the stars with my screams
    
    Give me  
      the burning iron rain
    
    Give me  
      the bitter shriek of spears
    
    Give me  
      The sharp-sweet scent of the charnel-field
    
    I will write my will in warrior's blood  
    Harrowing the heavens with my hands
    
    That all may know  
    That I may know
    
    The flutter of life  
      beating against the blade  
    And the red steel edge  
      of silence  
    

  
\----- 


End file.
